Sergios Menelaou

PhD Title

Pottery production, consumption, and distribution at Heraion on Samos, Greece during the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3200/3000-2000 BC)

Research

Research Interests

My research focuses on the Early Bronze Age Aegean culture and society as evidenced through the archaeological record. I am particularly interested in the application of scientific analytical techniques to the study of archaeological materials (e.g. ceramic petrography), with a special concern for recovering technological details of pottery production, usage and circulation.

Qualifications

Qualifications

Summary of Research Project

This PhD project investigates the technological processes and socio-cultural developments that took place during the Aegean Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC) at the island settlement of Heraion on Samos, Greece from the perspective of an integrated ceramic analysis. A series of different methods will be employed, including contextual, typological/macroscopic, petrographic, and microstructural analysis. The Heraion constitutes the largest proto-urban settlement in the eastern Aegean and, despite its strategic geographical position between the central Aegean and Asia Minor, it has been generally neglected within scholarship. Recent excavations (2009-2013) at this important site provided the opportunity to study unpublished pottery from domestic contexts of the 3rd millennium BC, which is characterised as a period of increasing differentiation, intensified interaction, and technological innovation. Following an agency-centred theoretical approach, which sees technology as situated practice and change as the interplay between internal processes and external stimuli, this PhD aims to track changes in the ceramic production system over time, to examine the provenance of possible imports and the inter-site circulation of the pottery, and in extension to illuminate aspects of the social and economic organisation of the settlement.

Menelaou, S., Kouka, O. and Day P.M. (2015). A technological assessment of ceramics from the Early Bronze Age Heraion settlement of Samos, Greece: towards an integrated approach. Poster presentation at the 13th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics (EMAC). Athens, 24-26 September 2015.

Menelaou, S., Kouka, O. and Day P.M. (2014). Pottery production and exchange at the Heraion, Samos, during the late third millennium BC: first steps in the study of technology and provenance. Poster presentation at the NARNIA International Conference, Interdisciplinary Studies of Ancient Materials from the Mediterranean. Nicosia, University of Cyprus, 17-19 September 2014.

Menelaou, S. (2013). A preliminary petrographic analysis of the Early Bronze Age II late – III pottery from the Heraion on Samos, Greece. Paper presented at the Archaeological Work in the Aegean Islands Conference. Rhodes, Greece, 27 November to 01 December 2013.